Quarter 2 · Detailed day-by-day lesson plans · Days 51–55
0 of 15 lessons done this week
Week 11 asks children to explain why their math strategies work — in words or drawings. Readers integrate images and text, and writers organize information from sources.
Ask 'how did you figure that out?' after every math problem this week.
Math journal, nonfiction picture book, lined paper
Explain Addition and Subtraction Strategies
Addition & Subtraction Within 100 · 2.NBT.B.5
Assessment: Write or draw to explain why addition and subtraction strategies work
Using Images and Text Together
Phonics: Reading rate and expression practice
Writing: Recall and organize information from experiences/sources
Plants, Animals & Habitats
2-LS2-1, 2-LS2-2, 2-LS4-1, K-2-ETS1-2
Students explain why the make-a-ten and decomposition strategies work using place value language and drawings (2.NBT.B.9).
3 quick questions from earlier weeks · about 3 minutes
Warm-Up
Spiral from Week 10: say 10 more and 100 less for 462 and 807 (472 and 362, 817 and 707). Then ask your child to solve 38 + 47 any way they like and tell you every step aloud (85).
Mini-Lesson
Write 38 + 47 = 85 and ask the week's big question: 'Why does that work?' Model an explanation with straws: '38 is 3 tens and 8 ones. 47 is 4 tens and 7 ones. Tens go with tens: 7 tens. Ones go with ones: 15, which is 1 ten and 5 ones. That makes 8 tens and 5 ones.' Write it as 30 + 40 = 70, 8 + 7 = 15, 70 + 15 = 85. Say, 'This is called decomposing, breaking numbers into their place value parts.'
Practice
Your child solves 56 + 29 and 43 + 38 by decomposing (85, 81), writing the three lines each time (tens sum, ones sum, total). Then they write 2 sentences under each explaining why splitting the numbers into tens and ones does not change the answer.
Wrap-Up
Ask, 'If you split 56 into 50 and 6, do you still have 56? How do you know?' Have your child prove it with 5 bundles and 6 straws.
Students explain how a diagram or picture adds to and clarifies the words in a nonfiction text and begin organizing research notes into sections (RI.2.7, W.2.8).
3 quick questions from earlier weeks · about 3 minutes
Read-Aloud
Say, 'Last week you figured out why authors write. This week we look at how pictures and words work as a team.' Read the first half of 'The Honey Makers' by Gail Gibbons, through the pages about the hive and the jobs of worker bees. On the labeled diagram of the bee's body, cover the labels and ask what the words tell that the picture alone cannot.
Mini-Lesson
Make a chart with two columns, 'The words tell me' and 'The picture shows me,' and fill it in for the honeycomb diagram (words: cells hold honey and eggs; picture: the cells are six-sided and packed together). Explain that a diagram is a drawing with labels and that it often shows something words alone would take a page to say.
Guided Reading
Reread the page showing the bee's dance. Have your child read the words first with the picture covered and try to draw the dance, then uncover the picture and compare. Ask, 'Which helped you understand more, and why do you think the author used both?'
Writing Workshop
Help your child turn the three question pages in the research folder into three section headings for the All About book ('What It Eats,' 'Where It Lives,' 'How It Grows'). Your child writes each heading on its own page and sorts the fact notes under the right heading by numbering them.
Word Study
Begin fluency word work: reading words instantly so the voice can do the expressing. Practice these words from 'The Honey Makers' until each is read in one look: honey, hive, nectar, pollen, worker, queen, drone, beeswax, comb, swarm. Then read the page about the queen aloud twice, the second time faster and smoother.
Students examine the parts of a flower and explain that pollen must move from flower to flower for seeds to form (2-LS2-2).
Science Question of the Week
Say, 'Last week seeds traveled by wind, water, and animals. Before a seed exists, a flower needs help too. Our question: How do flowers make seeds, and how can we help pollinators?' Read the first pages of 'The Reason for a Flower' by Ruth Heller.
Investigation: Flower Take-Apart
Buy or pick a large simple flower (an alstroemeria or lily from the grocery store works well). Your child gently pulls off the petals and lays them in a row, then finds the thin stalks with dusty tips (stamens with pollen) and the thicker center stalk (pistil). Touch a cotton swab to the pollen and look at the yellow dust with a hand lens. Tape one petal and one stamen into the notebook.
Wrap-Up
Your child draws the flower and labels petals, pollen, and the center. Ask, 'Why might bright petals be useful to a flower?'
Read it aloud first while your child follows along. Then read it together, and let your child read the parts they can. Talk about the words in the word box.
Many plants grow flowers. Flowers are more than pretty. They help plants make seeds.
Inside a flower is a yellow powder called pollen. For most flowers to make seeds, pollen must move from one flower to another flower of the same kind.
Animals help move pollen. A bee lands on a flower to drink sweet nectar. Pollen sticks to its fuzzy body. When the bee visits the next flower, some pollen rubs off. Butterflies and hummingbirds help move pollen too. Wind carries pollen for some plants, like grasses.
After pollen reaches a flower, the flower can make seeds. Often a fruit grows around the seeds. An apple is a fruit with seeds inside.
Seeds need to travel to find room to grow. Some float on the wind. Some stick to animal fur. Some are eaten by animals and dropped in new places.
Look at the picture. What is the bee carrying?
Picture caption: A bee drinks nectar from a flower. Yellow pollen sticks to its fuzzy body.
Math
Second Grade · Week 11 · Friday · secondgrade.com
Math
| If your child got… | Then… |
|---|---|
| All or almost all right | Move on to Week 12. Keep the daily Remember? boxes going. |
| About half right | Pick 3 missed problems. Your child solves each one and then teaches it to you, like a teacher. Ask, "How do you know?" after each step. |
| Only a few right | Do the catch-up activity "Show Me How You Know" for 3 days. Keep practicing facts to 20 every day alongside Week 12. |
ELA
A sea turtle swims with long flippers. It comes up on the beach to lay its eggs in the sand.
A sea turtle digs a nest in the sand.
Second Grade · Week 11 · Friday · secondgrade.com
ELA
| If your child got… | Then… |
|---|---|
| All or almost all right | Move on to Week 12. Keep the daily Remember? boxes going. |
| About half right | Read this week's passage again. For each picture or caption, ask, "What does this show that the words don't?" Read one page aloud 3 times, a little smoother each time. |
| Only a few right | Do a daily 5-minute repeated reading of the same short page. Talk about one picture in a nonfiction book each day. |
Science
Second Grade · Week 11 · Friday · secondgrade.com
Science
| If your child got… | Then… |
|---|---|
| All or almost all right | Move on to Week 12. Keep the daily Remember? boxes going. |
| About half right | Look at a real flower with a magnifying glass and find the pollen. Your child explains how a bee could carry it to another flower. |
| Only a few right | Reread "From Flower to Seed" together and draw the steps in order: flower, pollen, seed, new plant. |
Second Grade · Week 11 · Friday · secondgrade.com
Social Studies
| If your child got… | Then… |
|---|---|
| All or almost all right | Move on to Week 12. Keep the daily Remember? boxes going. |
| About half right | Go on a kitchen hunt for things that come from natural resources (water, wooden spoon, paper towels, food from soil). Your child tells where each one comes from. |
| Only a few right | Read about water, trees and soil together and match each resource to one thing people make or do with it. |
PE · Throwing, Catching & Hand-Eye Coordination · All Specials
PE · Week 11
I can aim at a target and track a moving object.
You need: a laundry basket or hoop, a beanbag or rolled-up socks, a balloon (a grown-up blows it up)
Second Grade · Week 11 · secondgrade.com
Math
Telling how and why my math strategy works
ELA
Pictures and words work together as a team
Science
Bees and other animals help flowers make seeds
Try it (10 min): Ask your child to teach you how to solve 48 + 35 using sticks and dots or tens and ones. Ask, "Why does that step work?"
Talk about it: Is there another way to solve it? Do both ways get the same answer?
Try it (10 min): Open a cookbook, a manual or a nonfiction book. Find one picture or diagram. Read the words near it together.
Talk about it: What did the picture show that the words did not?
Try it (10 min): Look at flowers in a yard, park or store. Look for pollen on the stamens, and watch for a bee or butterfly visiting.
Talk about it: Why do you think the flower has bright petals?
Try it (10 min): Pick five things in one room. Guess together which natural resource each came from (trees, rocks, plants, animals, oil).
Talk about it: Which resource can grow back? Which cannot?
We did blank of 4 activities.
Second Grade · Week 11 · secondgrade.com
